Insouciance
by Psicygni
Summary: Nyota is six the first time she sees an interspecies couple and her mother quickly and firmly guides her away.


_When Nyota is six, she sees an Andorian and a human at a sandwich shop. _

_"Why are they holding hands?" she asks her mother, who ignores the question until Nyota's loud enough that she can't anymore. "Oh," Nyota says when her mom explains to her that they're dating. "But she's not human."_

_"I know," her mother says and at six, Nyota sees her mother's mouth tighten and feels her mother's hands on her, guiding her away._

Nyota lays her menu over her plate, because if she's not holding it, Spock won't see how her hands are shaking. She's nervous and excited and thrilled, which is silly because she spent all semester working with him nearly every day, hours tucked away with him at his office, lunch breaks spent together while they worked, and more than one comm call late at night, his voice the last one she heard before she went to sleep.

But that wasn't at a nice restaurant, and she wasn't wearing a nice dress, and he hadn't picked her up at her dorm, and she wasn't as wildly elated as she is now to be out at dinner with him. She feels like a little ball of sheer happiness and giddy, dizzy joy and looks across the table at him right as he looks up at her, his eyes dark and soft in the candlelight.

"I'm glad we're doing this," she tells him and he nods.

"I am as well."

It makes her smile when he needlessly adjusts his fork for the second time and she reaches halfway across the table before she realizes that might not be the best idea.

He closes the distance between their hands, though, just a soft whisper of his fingers across hers before he pulls back, and she feels it down to her toes.

…

_Nyota is in middle school when a visiting Trill science teacher gives an assembly at her school. He covers some of the main points of their planet and culture and when he shows a slide of a giant animal that looks like a cross between a teddy bear and a shark, half of the school giggles while the other half lets out shrieks that are quickly shushed by their teachers. Nyota isn't listening, though, since she can't stop staring at him._

_Later, after she hasn't stopped talking about the presentation (or thinking about him), her parents sign her up for Trill classes on Thursday nights, since she's already taking French on Tuesdays._

_She enjoys it, but her teacher's human and learning the language isn't really the point. She doesn't really know how to say exactly what the point is, so she just pushes it down somewhere deep and doesn't tell her parents, because she thinks they wouldn't want to hear it anyway_.

"So, there's a lecture on Friday on Organian etymology and how it reflects caste divisions in their society," she tells Spock. They're lingering outside T'Elah Hall because they ran into each other and he hasn't exactly supplied a reason to be on his way, so she hasn't tried too hard to think of one either. "I was planning to go, if you wanted to join me."

"I am unoccupied Friday evening."

"Good. And, um, it's downtown and I remember you saying there was that new Vulcan restaurant there? I don't know if you want to go, or if you've already been there, but…" She ducks her head. "I had a good time the other night."

"Dining at Punar-tor Yem-tanek would be acceptable."

"Great." She feels a smile spread across her face, that same elation rising in her now as it has whenever she's thought about him and the dinner they shared. "That's great." Cadets start to trickle out of the buildings around him and she realizes they must have been standing there much longer than she thought if the class period is already over. "I guess I should get to Stellar Navigation," she says, nodding over at Cochrane Hall.

"I will walk with you," he offers and she doesn't want to think the crowds on the quad are the only reason they walk so close together.

…

_In eighth grade, she plays spin the bottle with a bunch of her classmates in the basement of her cousin's house and a boy who is Bajoran is there. He's visiting relatives at the University and Nyota's aunt insisted he spend the afternoon with them since he's so far from home._

_"What are you doing?" he asks from the couch, watching them all sitting cross legged in a circle. "Can I join?"_

_"I only kiss humans," Nyota's cousin explains._

_"Me too," everyone else says and Nyota watches the boy's expression fall._

_Later, when Nyota's aunt calls them upstairs for dinner, the boy lags behind, playing on his padd. Nyota sits beside him and watches him fly his fighter between asteroids, shooting at Klingons. _

_"You missed a secret passageway back there," she tells him because she's excellent at this game._

_"Oh. Thanks." He glances up at her and how close he is and the sudden, clear knowledge that she'd like to kiss him makes her run up the stairs after her friends. _

Spock touches her chin with his knuckle the instant before he kisses her, so that for the first moment of their kiss she's thinking about how his lips are as hot and dry as his finger is. After that, though, he spreads his other hand on her back and moves into her when her arms circle his shoulders, and her mind goes completely blank as their kiss deepens.

His breath is light and quick when they part and he leans his forehead against hers.

"Goodnight," he murmurs, his voice a deep rumble she can feel in her chest.

"Goodnight," she whispers back, but can't quite resist kissing him again, and then again, the dark corner of the path outside her dorm quiet and still and hushed but for the soft sounds of their mouths and the rustle of their hands passing over fabric.

There's no noise when he touches his finger tips lightly to hers, but she thinks it's better that way because the wash of warmth is just for her, to be shared between their minds and for nobody else.

…

_During her sophomore year of high school, a friend's older sister sneaks them a six pack of beer which they take down to a secluded section of beach with some others. They spend the night pretending they're drunk, running up and down the beach and splashing in the waves._

_Nyota keeps looking up at the sky above them, the beer cold and bubbly on her tongue, and the splash of the stars makes her think of long, rhythmic nouns in Cardassian and the quick, even tempo of Tellarite._

_"Nyota likes aliens," one of the girls giggles, and she feels herself flush, realizing she's been mouthing words to herself in other languages._

_"Xenolinguistics," she corrects and one of them rolls their eyes. She crosses her arms, her fingers tight around the bottle. "I like learning languages. And I don't _like_ aliens." They're not really listening, but even if they were, they wouldn't be able to hear the lie._

"So, um, just so I don't end up halfway through a gallon of ice cream and a bottle of tequila," she says to her salad where it's sitting on his desk. She's eaten lunch there a dozen times, but never thought she'd be asking him this. "You're not bonded, right?"

"No."

"Ok," she nods and takes a bite of lettuce, chewing quickly. "I don't mean to pry, I just didn't want to assume."

"That is logical," he says, then doesn't look up from his plate for a long, heavy moment.

"Sorry," she says into the silence. "I shouldn't have asked. And I didn't mean to be rude. If I was, I apologize."

"We made the decision to part ways when it was clear I was unlikely to develop an attraction to Vulcans," he says, finally, speaking to his own lunch. "As a teenager I assumed that I would, but as my classmates began maturing, I found myself markedly uninterested in my bondmate."

"Oh."

"And then my parents took me to visit Earth," he says and she doesn't think she's making up that rueful note that colors his voice. "I suppose it was an unforeseen result of bonding a seven year old half-human to a full Vulcan."

"That's hardly your fault," she points out.

"Logically, no." He chews a cucumber for a long time before swallowing. "However…"

"Yeah. I mean, I get it." She twists her hair around her hand and sweeps it all in front of one shoulder before brushing it back again. "It doesn't always feel like it's not."

His eyebrow twitches, just slightly.

She chases a carrot around her plate with her fork. "I dated a couple humans, you know. Everyone expected me to, so I did because it seemed easier than the alternative, especially when I was younger," she shrugs. "I never thought they were all that great."

She hears his pause as she focuses on stabbing a tomato to go with her carrot.

"I believe I have met one who is," he says lightly and she feels herself flush.

…

_Nyota earns her undergraduate degree in math and loves its precise rules and formulas stretched across a page so that they look like ancient runes, like a language written into the laws of the universe._

_Starfleet recruits heavily from her department and she finds herself more than once at the panels they hold on campus each semester. Her friends go to the ones on deep space exploration, and on research positions in theoretical subspace physics, and information sessions on the plans for a new flagship. Nyota pauses at the door to 'Understanding Xenosexuality: Acceptance, Importance, and Representation' before stepping inside. She stands at the back, thinking she's going to slip out to head back to the library any second, but instead stays until the end and asks two questions. _

_ She doesn't tell her friends about it, afterwards, but it's the topic of her essay for her application, and she's accepted with the offer of a full scholarship and a personal letter from the Dean hoping she'll contact him with any questions, as well as his sincere hope she chooses to attend the Academy in the fall._

"What brought you to Starfleet?" she asks Spock as they walk back to campus from dinner. She half expects him to give her the standard answer she hears bandied about by nearly every cadet and officer: a thirst for exploration, a desire to see new places, a chance to serve the Federation. But Spock has always surprised her in the best of ways and at every turn has shown himself to be not just fiercely intelligent, but thoughtful and compelling and so captivating that she has to shake herself that she's who he wants to spend his time with.

And now, he says, "I did not fit in at home and I wanted to find somewhere that I did." Their shoulders brush together, once, and then again. "And yourself?"

"Me, too."

He looks down at her and she's suddenly certain he's smiling even though his expression is completely unchanged.

"Are you seeing anyone else?" he asks, coming to a stop beside her on the sidewalk.

"No." She tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "Are you?"

"No."

"Good."

"Indeed."

They walk another half a block before she stops him with a hand on his forearm.

"So can I surmise that the logical deduction from that exchange of information is that both you and I will continue to not see anyone else?" she asks, and this time when the wind stirs her hair, he brushes it back for her.

"That would be my preference."

She turns her cheek into his hand, which has lingered at her face.

"Mine as well."

This time he's definitely smiling, and she feels something momentous slip into place in her life.

…

_Her first semester at the Academy, her roommate walks in on Nyota and her Andorian lab partner, who is excellent at data analysis and better in bed._

_"What are you two doing?"_

_"Sorry," Nyota says quickly as she tugs her shirt back down. "I didn't realize you were coming back so soon."_

_Her roommate at least waits until Ra'Ka has his pants zipped up and is out of the room before she says, "for the record, I'm _fine_ with it, of course, but is it ok if you don't do that in here?"_

_"Sure, sorry," Nyota says, her hand fisting in her blanket, before she forces herself to stop and smooth out the fabric. "But you had that guy here last night, so I figured…"_

_"Yeah, but you understand, right?"_

_"Sure," Nyota mutters, then shakes her head and as much as she tries, can't quite let go of her frown. Her stomach feels hot and jumpy and she feels something in her chest tighten. "No. I don't. This is Starfleet, get over it."_

_"Geez, calm down," her roommate says under her breath but Nyota refuses to apologize again._

The first time she and Spock have sex, they finally just admit they don't really know what they're doing with each other.

"I've never been with a Vulcan," she tells him, drawing back from their kiss to look at him. They're tangled together on his couch and while she can feel him hard against her stomach, neither of them seem to know what to do to move beyond just kissing. She has no idea where she can touch him, or how she should, or what he would like, and for his part his hands have barely strayed from her clothes, which are still on, despite how his hips roll into hers. "Why don't you just tell me what you need."

His normally pale skin is flushed green with either embarrassment or arousal – or both, she thinks, as he explains that for him, telepathy plays a vital role in any sexual encounter.

"Ok," she says, rubbing her hand up and down his arm. He swallows and his own hand tightens on her waist. "I mean that's kind of what I figured."

He worries at his lip and he's still tense under her hands. "I have only extremely limited experience with humans, yet I understand that it is abnormal can be unwelcome and I-"

"Hush," she whispers, curling her hand around the nape of his neck as she kisses him and presses into the hard heat of his body. "Show me."

_…_

_It takes her roommate three weeks of staring over at Nyota to finally ask, "so how does it work?" _

_"How does what work?" Nyota glances up from her Advanced Orthography text._

_"You know."_

_"… I don't."_

_"Like sex. With another species. Is it different?"_

_"Of course it's different. And I have a paper due tomorrow."_

_"Oh, sorry. For your professor who's a Trill, right?"_

_Nyota feels her fingers tighten on her padd._

_"Yes."_

_"So, would you and he…"_

_"I really need to finish this."_

_"Ok, sure."_

_Her roommate smiles at her and Nyota feels her stomach clench._

She feels a tremble of curiosity from him one day when they're entwined in his bed, their uniforms scattered on the floor and the sheets already rumpled under them.

"You're curious," she states, running her finger along the elastic of his boxers.

"I have never received, nor performed oral sex," he says in that even, measured tone of his like he's explaining a fact in class. He hesitates, then, his eyes sliding from hers to study her shoulder. "Yes, I am curious."

"Lie back," she whispers, sliding his boxers down his hips. He watches her draw her thumb up the underside of his cock and she sees him swallow. She's learned that he likes anything with their hands and has more than once whimpered into her neck as she gets off from his fingers inside her, slicking against her. Once, when she was straddling him and enjoying the deep stretch of him in her, she slipped his index and middle finger into her mouth and watched his mouth drop open and his eyes grow wide and dark and hot.

He makes that same, strangled noise now, his expression desperate as she sees him try to wrestle for control even as she works her tongue over him, lightly at first and then harder until his hips start to shift and his fingers drift down to tangle in her hair.

"So Vulcans don't do that?" she asks, afterwards, admiring the way his chest is still heaving and the warm wash of his pleasure that still echoes through his fingers pressed to hers. He just shakes his head, his eyes still closed. "Then I'm even more glad you're half human," she tells him and watches him try not to smile.

He sits up, then, and eases her onto her back, kissing her deeply. He makes his way down her body, his lips hot and slow, but pauses at her stomach and looks up at her.

"You will provide feedback?"

She smiles and runs her fingers through his hair.

"Yes," she says, and smiles again when her panties join his boxers somewhere next to the bed.

_…_

_Nyota makes it to midterms with her assigned roommate before she finally climbs up two flights of stairs and knocks on a dorm room door that looks identical to her own._

_"Hi," Gaila says when she opens the door. "Wanna fuck?"_

_"I need a new roommate."_

_Gaila's eyes narrow. "Nobody wants to room with me."_

_"I do."_

_Gaila looks her up and down._

_"I bring guys back all the time. Girls, too."_

_"I know."_

_"All sorts of species."_

_"Yeah, I've, um, heard."_

_"Tentacles. Slime. Claws, sometimes. Nobody wants to room with me," Gaila repeats, crossing her arms._

_"Look, maybe we can talk about people not being here during finals, but…" Nyota trails off and stares somewhere over Gaila's shoulder. "Please."_

_"Are you ok?" Gaila asks, stepping closer._

_Nyota presses her lips together and shakes her head. "No."_

_Gaila's expression softens. "Ok."_

_Nyota swallows. "I don't want to talk about it."_

_"That's ok, you don't have to. Which bed do you want?"_

"I'm really happy with you," she tells him one night while they're eating plomeek soup at his table. "You're like my best friend who I also get to have sex with."

His mouth twitches in that non-smile that makes her heart flutter.

"I suppose I should be thankful that Cadet Gaila did not secure that distinction."

"You should be," Nyota says lightly, running her toes up his leg under the table. "I'm serious, though."

"I have had a similar experience to yours," he says and she grins because she likes how he'll go completely out of his way to avoid admitting he's happy, while doing just that.

"Gaila's my other best friend."

"Are there strict qualifications?"

Nyota purses her lips. "Some amount of green physiology."

"That does give us a certain advantage."

She taps her spoon against her mouth, thinking. "Good at computer sciences."

"I see."

"A certain disregard for normative, cultural expectations."

"Is that so?"

"Definitely." Nyota reaches across the table to squeeze his fingers before returning to her soup. "You've both taught me a lot, you know."

"Not just how to perform routine software updates on your padd?"

She smiles around a spoonful of soup. "Sorry it's not intuitive for everyone," she says in Chi Tauri, which he only rudimentarily understands. "And no, really," she says seriously, in the jumbled, tangled fusion of Standard and Swahili and Vulcan they use with each other.

"Such as."

"She's just so comfortable with everything that she kind of helped me get over some things. With sex and stuff." She shrugs and stirs her soup. "I kind of thought when I got to Starfleet I was good with myself but I think she really helped show me what it was like to be truly ok with all of it. I think I finally learned that with her help."

"Helped you how, exactly?" he asks, but she knows he's teasing her in that gentle way of his. He reaches out and tips her bowl towards him, checking how much she has left to eat. "Finish your soup."

"Why?" she grins.

"I wish to further understand what, exactly, she assisted you in accepting about yourself."

"I'm pretty sure you know," she laughs, dragging her toes over his calf again.

He shakes his head and pushes his own half full bowl away. "Circumstantial evidence, at best."

"You may want to finish your dinner," she tells him, taking another slow bite of her soup. "You might need your strength."

…

_She's been living with Gaila for three semesters when she opens their door one Friday afternoon and yells "fuck!" when she realizes Kirk is in her room. Then she realizes he can completely and totally see what's on her padd and squeezes her eyes shut, covering the back of the screen with both hands. "Fuck. Get out, Kirk."_

_She's mortified and her cheeks are burning and Gaila wasn't supposed to be back yet and if the room is empty and Nyota wants to be alone for a while and look at pictures of- fuck, she thinks. It's one thing to be comfortable around Gaila but Kirk, of all people. Of all fucking people._

_"Hey, sorry, sorry," he says, but he's chuckling as he stuff his legs into his pants. "She gave me her keycode."_

_"Out. Please."_

_"Look, it's not-" He's laughing so hard that he can barely manage his zipper. "I mean, girls look at porn, too. Oh my god, Uhura, your face!" He actually snorts, his entire face and neck and chest flushed with his laughter. "Aw, c'mon, I won't tell anyone. Especially if you tell me your first name."_

_She wants to maybe yell at him, or maybe vomit, or maybe just strangle him, and then decides she will actually kill him, for sure, on the spot, when to her horror she feels her eyes start to burn and a lump form in her throat no matter how hard she tries to swallow it back down._

_"Get out."_

_She busies herself dropping her padd on her bed, and her bag and jacket over it, and turns towards the wall so she won't have to look at him. She hears him still, and then the creak of the bed as he stands up._

_"Hey, hey," he says softly and she hears him step closer to her. "I really won't tell anyone, I swear."_

_"Out."_

_"No I get it," he says. "I mean, nobody really talks about it, but…I'm just saying, me too, you know?" _

_"Most men want to fuck my roommate," she points out, her voice harsh. "Doesn't exactly make you special, everyone experiments at the Academy, right?"_

_She drags her hand angrily across her cheek, wiping the wetness on her skirt. _

_"I don't just mean with Gaila. And I also don't want people to know because they can be giant dicks about it, even when they don't mean to be. And not the good kind of giant dick. I won't tell anyone, Uhura, but, look, it doesn't mean it's some dirty secret, it's ok."_

_"I know it's ok," she snaps. _

_He awkwardly pats her arm and she waits, staring at the wall, while he gathers the rest of his things._

_And then, because he's Kirk, he adds, "this does go a long way towards explaining why you won't sleep with me," and she can hear the grin in his voice. "Offer's still open, you know. Humans can be fun, too," he calls from the door._

_"You're insufferable," she yells after him and hears his laugh follow him out into the hall._

"Anything else for you and your friend?"

What with the Academy and Starfleet HQ, San Francisco is one of the more progressive cities on Earth. And yet, Nyota thinks ruefully, glancing up at the waiter and then through the windows at Spock standing outside the small café on his comm.

"Boyfriend," she corrects and the server's smile becomes slightly fixed. "He's my boyfriend."

"Well, anything else?"

She had been trying to wheedle Spock into the chocolate cake, since neither of them have much work that afternoon and the last time he had had some had been fun. Really fun.

"No thanks," she says, throwing a few credits on the table and gathering Spock's bag and jacket as well as her own.

"You did not wish to remain?" he asks, done with his call by the time she gets to him.

"I love you," she tells him.

"Ah." He blinks. "That is excellent."

Her chest actually aches as she looks at him there on the crowded side walk, his comm still in his hand, his expression stony as she watches him process what she just told him.

"A lot," she clarifies, then drops their stuff on the sidewalk and steps forward to wrap her arms around his waist and push her face into his chest.

"Excellent," he says again and his complete lack of inflection coupled with the way his heart is positively racing in his side makes her smile and nestle closer. People are staring, she knows, but fuck them, she thinks, holding him tighter. Fuck all of them.

…

_It takes until her third year at the Academy to have room in her schedule for the independent study she's been wanting to do since she got there._

_"I am Commander Spock. You are in need of an advisor?"_

_"I am." When she messaged him, she had hardly expected him to come find her at breakfast in the mess hall, on a Saturday, but there he is, pulling out the chair across from her. "I'm trying to do this independent study on-"_

_"How various cultures within the Federation react to and tolerate xenosexuality. Lieutenant Mavorl recommended you as a particularly strong cadet in your field and further stated you are unsurpassed in xenolinguistics and xenocultural competencies. I am available on Thursdays after lunch. My office is in D'Nare Hall."_

_"Ok," she says and then he's rising from his chair again. She calls after him, "it was nice to have met you, sir."_

She slips up one night when she's talking to her sister and mentions that she has a boyfriend.

"Boyfriend? You have a boyfriend? What's he like, where's he from?"

"Vulcan," Nyota hedges, fisting her hands together underneath her desk so that her sister can't see them through the monitor.

"I didn't know many humans lived on Vulcan. Oh, wasn't that advisor of yours you keep talking about from last semester Vulcan?

"His name is Spock," Nyota says.

"That's a funny name," her sister laughs, her nose wrinkling and Nyota swallows down the hard, familiar twinge of pain and hurt that swells in her. "Who's this boyfriend of yours? I want to hear all about him."

"I…"

"And don't tell me that you're dating that alien guy, because I won't believe it even for a second."

Nyota thinks about the wordless sense of belonging and warmth that diffuses across her skin every time Spock touches her, the way he makes her coffee and breakfast to eat in her morning class, the time he brought her umbrella to her in the library because she'd been there all day and had no idea it was storming, even though he hates being out in the rain. She thinks about his sharp humor and how often he makes her laugh, and his sense of morality and integrity and how deeply she respects him, and how he's fundamentally good and decent in a way that makes her feel safe and like she can trust him with all of herself.

"It's non-Terran, not alien," Nyota corrects. "And no, you wouldn't believe it."

…

_Halfway through her semester working with Commander Spock, her mother still doesn't grasp the topic of her project._

_"You're writing a paper on what? And with a Vulcan?" her mother asks. "Why are you even interested in, what is it called, xenosexuality? I thought you wanted to study different languages."_

_"Communications track cadets are supposed to study ways in which societies and individuals relate to each other, Mom. And it's interesting."_

_"I really wish you'd consider moving back home, dear. I heard there's an opening at the University in the language department."_

_"Those are all Terran languages, and I'm not just interested in linguistics. Communications is so much more than that. We learn about customs and cultures and traditions and ways to-"_

_"But there's so much that's interesting here on Earth, Nyota, and then you wouldn't be so far away from your family. I just don't understand, honey, we love you so much."_

_"I know you don't understand," Nyota says quietly. "I know."_

The first time Nyota meets Amanda Grayson, Spock actually stops at the door of the restaurant before walking inside to ask if she's ok.

"Fine," she says, because it'll take too long to explain to him that since she was a little girl, she's admired the first human in Federation history to have an interspecies marriage. And that she just happened to do a project with her son, who turned out to be kind of incredible and wickedly smart and lovely and wonderful, and now they're dating and not only is Nyota meeting her boyfriend's mother, she's also meeting the woman who has done more for interspecies representation on Earth than anyone else, and Nyota may very well throw up, even though she hasn't eaten all day.

Spock takes her hand and she watches his eyebrow climb.

"You are quite peculiar," he says, his voice soft with affection.

"Sorry I never told you that I'm like your mom's biggest fan." She grimaces. "I'm weird, I know."

"I meant, rather, that most of my acquaintances are nervous to meet my father."

"Oh. Him? Ambassador to Earth? Ostensibly stern, austere, overly reserved Vulcan who's the son of none other than T'Pau?" Nyota laughs and squeezes Spock's hand. "Nah. I just want your mother to like me."

He leans down to press a kiss to the top of her head. "I have spoken of you at great length and you have my assurance that she already does." He laces their fingers together and she can feel the hot rush of his happiness that she's felt from him all day at the thought of her meeting his parents. "However, I must tell you that there is rampant competition for the position of, as you say, my mother's 'biggest fan.'"

She laughs and curls her free hand over his wrist, which is really just an excuse to wipe her sweating palm on something. He knows that, of course, and kisses her again.

_I love you,_ he whispers into her mind and she squeezes his wrist.

"I love you, too," she whispers back.

"Come," he says out loud, and reaches for the door handle, his hand tight on hers as he leads her over to his parents.

…

_The afternoon she turns in her final paper to him, Spock suggests dinner to celebrate the successful completion of her project. _

_"That would be lovely." She feels her heart hammer and tries to school her smile into something that's more professional. "I had a wonderful time working with you this semester."_

_"It was an intriguing piece of work, one which you executed with great distinction."_

_"Thank you."_

_"I admit I am tempted to send it to a number of former acquaintances on Vulcan." He pauses and she recognizes after so many months of working closely with him the sign of him being on the verge of saying something more personal. "Now that the semester is over, I wish to tell you that your project, as you would say in your vernacular… hit close to home."_

_"I, um, wasn't sure." It's her turn to hesitate and she watches the way he studies his hands. "Is that why you wanted to advise this study?" _

_"One reason," he says, looking up to meet her gaze, his eyes dark and sharp, and she feels pure energy leap between them, feels a thrill that starts in her stomach and spreads through her whole body._

_"Oh," she says and this time she absolutely cannot possibly contain her smile. "Good. Um, me too."_

_"Dinner, then," he says and she is nearly certain he's smiling._

_"Dinner," she echoes, feeling her heart positively leap at the prospect._

"You were always going to be in an interspecies relationship," she murmurs from her pillow one night and he blinks and lays the padd he's been reading on his lap. "You had no choice, even if you had wanted to be with a Vulcan."

"Yes." He looks down at the padd and she watches the way the blue light from it falls over his face. "Unless I chose to be single."

She smiles and nestles into her pillow with a yawn. "I'm glad you didn't."

She's dozing again when he finally finishes his work and she hears the soft click when he sets his padd on the nightstand.

"Nyota?" he asks, softly enough that if she were asleep it wouldn't wake her.

"Hmmm?"

"Perhaps, if you ever choose to do so, you can tell your family that due to my mixed genetics, you are only in half of an interspecies relationship so therefore, logically, they should only be half as upset."

She snorts a laugh into her pillow at the image of him patiently explaining to her parents and siblings exactly how appalled they are logically allowed to be.

"I'll keep that in mind," she murmurs. He lifts the blankets between them in invitation and she scoots closer to him, snuggling into his side and breathing him in. "I'm going to tell them, you know."

"You are?" he asks and she can feel his genuine surprise.

"Yeah, you're stuck with me for a very, very long time, so they're just going to have to get over themselves," she yawns.

"I see," he says, smoothing his hand down her back. He's lulled her nearly to sleep with his warm hand stroking over her, when he whispers, "can you specify how long, exactly?"

"S'long as you'll have me," she mumbles. "M'sleeping, Spock."

"I see," he says again and tightens his arms around her so that she falls asleep with the warm wash of his happiness coursing through her.


End file.
